Apparently, it rankled a lot of people that wild card teams with better records had to play on the road against division champions last weekend.

Shouldn’t the 8-7-1 Green Bay Packers, instead, have played in San Francisco against the 11-5 49ers? Or the 10-6 Philadelphia Eagles in New Orleans against the 11-5 Saints?

No, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Tuesday night. And the format is unlikely to change any time soon.

But – and this is a big but -- don’t be surprised if the number of playoff teams expands from 12 to 14. Perhaps soon.

“There may be momentum in the media (to reseed playoff teams based on record),” Goodell said during an event in New York, “but one of the premises we start with every season is that your first objective is to win the division.

“And when you win the division, you should have a home game ... We’ve discussed this for decades in the NFL and we believe that’s the right priority.”

That said, Goodell sounded quite positive about the prospect of the playoff field expanding by two teams.

“That is under serious consideration,” Goodell said. “We think it’s one of the great things about the NFL, besides the fact that it’s unscripted. Every team and their fans start the season with hope.

“Thirteen of the 16 games had playoff implications on the final day of the season. That’s extraordinary and we want to keep that ... This is about believing in better. Can you make it better? Can you make those (division) races better by adding two more teams? That’s compelling, and that’s what we’re looking at.”

A 14-team playoff would work like this:

Instead of the top two division winners in each conference getting a wild card weekend bye, only the top seed would. Each second seed on wild card weekend would play host to the additional wild-card participant in each conference.

This year, using the current NFL tiebreaker system, that would have meant, in the AFC, the seventh-seed Pittsburgh Steelers would have played in New England against the second-seed Patriots, while in the NFC seventh-seed Arizona Cardinals would have played in Carolina against the second-seed Panthers.

From there, the playoff format would reflect the current one.

Like it? Love it? Hate it? Opinions were flying all around Wednesday.

I think it would be a good thing.

Byes are a dispensable luxury. There are no byes in pro hockey, baseball or basketball playoffs, and if they were eliminated altogether from the NFL I’d be fine with that.

But in this potential 14-team format, the top seeds would keep their byes. So fine. It’s the prize for being No. 1, right?

Adding two more games to the first playoff weekend likely would compel the NFL to add another day of games. Monday night, presumably.

A playoff Monday Night Football game? Yes, please.

Some are concerned it will water down the playoff field, but c’mon, adding one playoff team per conference, and two playoff games per year, is insignificant dilution.

It’s not like this is the NHL of 20-odd years ago when 16 of 21 teams made the playoffs.

Fourteen playoff teams out of 32 overall still means 18 can spend their Januarys looking for a new head coach or poring over tape of college stars.

And remember when baseball purists got their pillow bases in a knot over the idea, starting in 1994, of allowing more than just four teams into the playoffs? Expanding the field to eight, and then 10, hasn’t been responsible for that sport’s decline in popularity.

The NFL has never been more popular. No American sport has been this popular. Just on Wednesday, the NFL trumpeted the fact that 34 of the 35 most-watched TV shows in America in 2013 were NFL games.

Adding two more playoffs teams will only increase that popularity. On that point, Goodell is right.

And if a 7-9 team some year wins the Super Bowl, outraged purists will cry in their pillows. But no one else.